A new area of political communication: The use of Twitch.tv as a politicization tool of young voters

Twitch.tv is a live streaming website launched in 2011 that allows streamers to share the video games they play or the content they produce with viewers in real time, where the streamers themselves share it with other viewers via a camera view (Harpstead et al., 2019; Twitch, 2022; Hamilton et al., 2014; Scully-Blaker et al., 2017). On this platform, users find the opportunity to play video games, just chatting, talk and make game programs, and even streamers themselves while doing various daily activities. Twitch.tv relies on a variety of content created by streamers to attract internet users to the site. Twitch.tv provides its users with a platform where they can broadcast any content they want live, and thus stands out as a pioneering platform that helps millions of people come together and interact. Examining how Twitch.tv is perceived as a live streaming platform, it is understood that most of the people see the platform as a gaming portal or associate it with gaming culture. However, in the past, the platform has largely been marketed to video game players and viewers, and is used by those interested in this subject. On the other hand, most of the research on Twitch.tv specifically points to the role of streamers and viewers, the communication patterns and dimensions between them, the ecosystem of the platform and the rapid rise of the platform. Existing research shows that there are not enough studies on political communication, the politicization of individuals and their political participation. In addition, the presence of political figures on the platform has made the studies on the relationship between Twitch.tv and politics even more important. This simultaneous video website, which was designed for video game enthusiasts when it first appeared, is considered as a new field of political communication for this thesis. In this thesis titled "A New Field of Political Communication: The Use of Twitch.tv as a Tool for Politicization by Young Voters", the effect of Twitch.tv on the politicization process of young voters who will vote for the first time and whether it is a new political field has been investigated. In this context, desk-based research and exploratory studies show that Twitch.tv is a platform where especially young people spend time, and that politicians make various investments in this platform, albeit very slowly. In addition to these studies, it has been revealed that Twitch.tv contents have changed over time and politics and agenda topics have been discussed on this platform. Considering these indicators, the main starting question of this study determined as "How do young voters, especially those who will vote for the first time, use Twitch.tv as a political information and politicization tool?". In the first part of the thesis titled "Political Communication", the basic studies on the concept of political communication and how political communication is used in the era of social media are discussed. Again, in this section, by whom the concept of political communication was first used in academic studies, various definitions of political communication, who took part in the political communication process, and how political communication has changed over the ages are given. When the first chapter is analyzed in detail and the definitions for political communication are examined, it is concluded that political communication has a complex structure. Looking at the definitions made by different theorists and researchers, it is understood that political communication has a complex conceptual content, but it has been used in various forms from past to present and this field is used by political actors as a type of communication to interact with both politicians and voters. After the political communication definitions, which are discussed in detail and whose conceptual framework is determined, the actors involved in the political communication process are explained in detail. Looking at the actors involved in the political communication process, it is detailed that, in addition to the elected political actors, organized actors, media and voters take an active part in political communication. In this part of the thesis, firstly the article written by Blumler and Kavanah (1999) and then "The Fourth Age of Political Communication" article by Blumler in 2016 are considered as the main sources, the first three ages of political communication and then the fourth age of political communication are explained and the development of political communication from the past to the present has been analyzed on the axis of the ages. In addition, at the end of this section, the use of Youtube and Twitter in the United States and Turkey in the context of political communication in the era of social media has been detailed, stating that platforms such as YouTube and Twitter, which are popular social media platforms, allow candidates to reach voters directly and mobilize their supporters. In the second part of the thesis, it has been tried to explain what Twitch.tv is in general, based on the data between the years 2021-2022. First, the emergence and historical development of Twitch.tv is emphasized, and then the transition process from Justin.tv to Twitch.tv is mentioned. This section also draws attention to the different definitions made for Twitch.tv. When the definitions for Twitch.tv are examined, this platform has been defined in terms of features such as communities interacting with each other simultaneously, there is an important live stream for strategic communication, and it creates third spaces for virtual communities. Then, based on current data, the basic features of Twitch.tv and Twitch.tv users, the number of viewers of the Twitch platform by country, how many people are watched, the number of active broadcasters, which categories are popular on Twitch.tv, the distribution of users by age groups and gender on Twitch.tv is explained in detail. At the end of this section, the use of Twitch.tv in the process of political communication and politicization, which forms the basis of this thesis, is discussed with examples from the world and Turkey. It has been evaluated how Twitch.tv is used as a political communication and politicization area by platform users and publishers in the elections held on 14 and 28 May 2023 in Turkey, and how these forms of use contribute to Twitch.tv and the field of politics. In the third part of this thesis, titled "The Use of Twitch.tv as a New Political Communication Area by Young Voters", the method of the research, the aim of the research, its importance, the starting question of the research, the hypotheses, the sample and the scope of the research are detailed. The fact that the live streaming feature offered by Twitch.tv shows new effects in the field of politics also shows us that this field is an important research area. In this context, the main purpose of this thesis is to examine the politicians' use of the Twitch.tv platform as a new political communication tool, their efforts to take part in this platform, the discussion of politics on this platform and their approaches to this new political communication process from the perspective of Twitch.tv users. In this thesis, in which the qualitative research method was used, firstly a literature review was used to answer the research questions about the relationship between Twitch.tv and political communication, and then a semi-structured online in-depth interview technique was used to understand why, how and in what ways young people use this platform. In this context, out of 210 people who wanted to participate in the thesis via GoogleDocs, 99 people who marked the phrase "I have not voted before" were contacted via the e-mail addresses they shared on GoogleDocs. Interviews were held with the first 18 people who responded via e-mail. Then, 18 participants were asked whether they knew people who were Twitch.tv viewers who had not voted before, and 13 more people were reached in this way. In this context, interviews were held with 18 people who participated through the posts on different social media platforms. Subsequently, interviews were conducted with 13 more people with the online snowball method, which is the digital version of the snowball technique, which is one of the methods used to create a sample in the qualitative research method. In this context, semi-structured online interviews were conducted with 31 Twitch.tv users (22 Male- 9 Female) in the sample between 05.04.2023 and 11.04.2023, and these interviews lasted an average of 35 minutes. In this study, the descriptive analysis approach, which is a qualitative research technique, was used as the findings obtained as a result of in-depth interviews will be analyzed under sub-headings. Discussions such as whether Twitch.tv is a place where political communication and politics take place, the opportunities provided by Twitch.tv, the transformation of categories in Twitch.tv, the use of Twitch.tv by politicians, the politicization of users and the development of political attitudes are detailed in the findings. In addition to the third part of the research, a long literature review dominates. The main reasons why the literature section is so comprehensive is that the studies on Twitch.tv in Turkey are not given much importance, the platform's close contact with political communication is ignored and academic studies in this field are few. For this reason, the literature section is given in detail in order to raise awareness about Twitch.tv and to show the readers the studies done in the field. As a result of the analysis of the findings, it was concluded that Twitch.tv emerged as a new political communication area with significant potential. It has been understood that this platform, which seems to change and develop with its users and different content themes come to the fore over time, will enable politicians to express themselves sincerely to a wider audience when used effectively. Although it is concluded that politicians in Turkey are insufficient in their use of Twitch.tv, Twitch.tv as a live streaming platform signals that it will be a critical area for understanding future political activism, political campaigns during election periods and political communication between voters and politicians. Because on this platform, politics is talked about in every channel, including game broadcasts, and as everything can be politics, it is natural for this to happen on Twitch.tv. In addition to these findings, It has been concluded that Twitch.tv is generally used by individuals in the 18-30 age group, the female population is less than the male population, the number of users and views of Twitch.tv has increased especially after the pandemic period and it is an alternative platform to traditional media. Looking at the opinions of the young voters who voted for the first time, it was concluded that this platform is no longer a platform where mainly game broadcasts are made, and that the contents of Twitch.tv are increasingly diversified from recipes to chat broadcasts, from educational channels to channels that discuss the agenda. In fact, it is seen that Twitch.tv is increasingly used as an important area for politics and political communication process. In this context, it has been concluded that the participants generally use Twitch.tv to follow economic, political and social developments and to obtain information, on the other hand, they use the platform to interact and socialize with other people. Another conclusion drawn from the findings is that participants who support the existence and discussion of politics on Twitch.tv, define politicians as "guests" or "insincere" because politicians in Turkey do not use this platform frequently and cannot discover the potential of Twitch.tv in the political communication process, and participants state that adequate investments in Twitch.tv are not made by politicians. This thesis examines the impact of the concept of political communication, whose definition also changes according to the channels it is subject to, through Twitch.tv, a live streaming platform. This study will make a unique contribution to Twitch.tv studies, as there has been little work done on Twitch.tv in the world and there has not been a comprehensive study on Twitch.tv and political communication in Turkey. It is hoped that this thesis, which is a pioneer for future research focusing on the relationship between Twitch.tv and politics, will contribute to the literature and shed light on new studies by increasing the interest in this field.